Then Captain Mayo Sees Shoals

There's naught upon the stern, there's naught upon the lee,
Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we.
But there's a lofty ship to windward,
And she's sailing fast and free,
Sailing down along the coast of the high Barbaree.
--Ancient Shanty

The skipper of the Olenia found himself dabbling in guesses and
wonderment more than is good for a man who is expected to obey without
asking the reason why.

That cruise seemed to be a series of spasmodic alternations between
leisurely loafing and hustling haste.

There were days when he was ordered to amble along at half speed
offshore. Then for hours together Julius Marston and his two especial
and close companions, men of affairs, plainly, men of his kind, bunched
themselves close together in their hammock chairs under the poop awning
and talked interminably. Alma Marston and her young friends, chaperoned
by an amiable aunt--so Captain Mayo understood her status in the
party--remained considerately away from the earnest group of three.
Arthur Beveridge attached himself to the young folks.

From the bridge the captain caught glimpses of all this shipboard
routine. The yacht's saunterings offshore seemed a part of the summer
vacation.

But the occasional hurryings into harbors, the conferences below with
men who came and went with more or less attempt at secrecy, did not fit
with the vacation side of the cruise.

These conferences were often followed by orders to the captain to thread
inner reaches of the coast and to visit unfrequented harbors.